Hillblazers Night a Great Success for Clinton

After a great 9 day vacation with my family, I'm back and hitting the ground running. last Night I attended a Hillblazers fundraising event for Hillary Clinton at Hiro in Manhattan.

Hillary was at her best, rallying a crowd of 800 young people in what was scheduled to be her last New York appearance before Super Tuesday February 5th. My wife and I met some great people from Park Slope, Brooklyn and enjoyed watching Carson Kressley have to go to the back of line to get in, just like everyone else.

I'll upload some video footage of Hillary later, but to be sure, between the event and the New York Times endorsement, yesterday was Hillary's day to shine in this city.

On Deadline Day, Times Ledger Runs Awesome Piece

Today is the first important deadline in my political career. It's the deadline to receive contributions to file on Jan 15th with the Campaign Finance Board of New York. A year ago, I may have been interested in one day going into elected public service, but I had no idea fundraising was quite this important.

It's the name of the game. More money means electability. More money means the ability to advertise. More money means the ability to hire top consultants. I truly wish it were all about policies, ideas, attitude, etc. but, while those things are important, the ability to raise money is most important. Luckily, I have always been pretty good at sales, and fundraising for a campaign is pretty similar to selling. Luckily also I have a terrific network of friends and family who have gotten me started in an amazing way. So, the deadline is today, and we're still counting up all of the checks, (and if you are interested in contributing, you certainly still can, just click here!) but it looks like we will file with more than $15,000 on January 15th, not bad for the first filing date nearly 2 years away from the election.

Finally, The Times Ledger, the largest paid newspaper in Queens, wrote a terrific piece on me and the campaign today. You can read it all here. Thanks to Mr. Alam, who authored the piece. I hope it'll be the first of many as I attempt to serve my community, borough and city.

I'm going away on a much needed family vacation next week. I'm sure I'll still be checking email, and blogging....just a little bit less.

Young Democrats Taking Over Queens, NY and the World

I went last night to my first Queens County Young Democrats meeting. The club is a chapter of the strong Young Democrats of America. I had joined the club a year ago but had never had the time to go to a meeting. Boy was I glad I did- at the ripe old age of 31, I was so impressed with the energy, passion, and drive of the young people of this club, led by Matthew Silverstein and Costa Constantinides, the latter of whom is running for City Council in Astoria.

It was a joint meeting with the Queens Labor Caucus, another up-and-coming group led by Mike Corbett of the Teamsters. We talked about national politics, of course, including the New Hampshire Primary, getting results via web every 15 minutes throughout the meeting (Now that's my kind of Democratic Club meeting!). We also talked about how to make Queens "True Blue" in '08 and some cool upcoming events: a bowling party January 26th, a dinner meeting February 12th, a celebrity bartender night Feb. 25th, and a Sing for Solidarity Karaoke night March 19th.

Things are really happening with these guys. Glad I joined them!

Happy New Year!!! My 2008 Political Resolutions...

1) To put together a terrific team of supporters, neighbors, friends, and concerned citizens to help prepare for the City Council Race.

2) To lose 30 pounds, partially by walking every single street in the district and getting to know as many of my constituents as possible.

3) To raise at least $100,000 in contributions, before the match, to help fund the best campaign we possibly can for '09.

4) To get as much done for the campaign on my own as possible, and keep my amazing wife from having undue stress about this endeavor.

5) To support the best Presidential Candidate in any way I can, and to support local candidates that I agree with in New York.

Happy New Year to one and all, and here's to a great 2008!

We Made the Daily News! (How the heck did I miss that?)

The campaign was featured in the New York Daily News's Daily Politics Blog nearly three weeks ago. Columnist Elizabeth Benjamin even said I had the skill of self-promotion "down-pat."

Well, thanks, Elizabeth, for introducing your readers to my campaign and for your kind words. I can't say they're all true- part of good marketing, promotion, and public relations of course is monitoring the press for the results- and I'm quite embarrassed to say I just read your December 11th article last night.

The good news? Even though I didn't read it right away, lots of people did, checked out my website, and a few even contributed. One veteran political guy who read the blog and happened to watch me on Paradise Hotel back in 2003 even emailed me, met with me, and gave me 2 hours of terrific advice, re-energizing me just 2 weeks before my first filing deadline.

Segue alert: January 10th is the first contribution deadline for my all-important fund-raising...So if you're out there, and you haven't supported our campaign yet, or even if you have, and you'd like to give more, thank you so much in advance for clicking here to find out EXACTLY how to contribute.

Happy New Year's Eve Eve Eve Eve.

Movie Hopper No More

So, for years, I enjoyed moviehopping. For those of you that have no idea what this is, moviehopping is the practice of buying tickets for one movie and then staying to see a few. In fact, in my heyday, with my good friend Danny M, I saw as many as 8, 9, even 10 movies in one day. It was a lot of fun, if exhausting, and really passed the time well, especially for a Jew on Christmas.

But it was unethical, and probably illegal as well. Sure, I justified the practice by saying if the theater wasn't sold out, they were not losing any revenue, and I was spending more on food staying there all day, and lots of people movie hop, and the employees don't care, and blah blah blah, but the bottom line is, it was wrong.

Now I'm 31 years old and running for City Council, so it was time to finally retire from moviehopping. My first challenge came Saturday night, when I went to the movie Charlie Wilson's War in Douglaston with my wife. It was a good movie...but we wanted more. We had a babysitter for the night, and we were trying to get a head start in our annual quest to see all of the Oscar contenders. We decided to see Sweeney Todd, and then the big question arose....to pay or not to pay? It would be so easy- we were already in the theater, Sweeney Todd was about to start, we were seconds away from the hop...but right was right.

I gulped, left the theater, purchased 2 tickets for Sweeney Todd, and proudly reentered the theater, a legal, legitimate movie hopper for the first time ever. Doing the right thing felt damn good- and as I waited in line for popcorn refills, bragging to my wife about how great it felt to pay $55 for a night at the movies, I looked up only to see David Weprin, the current City Council member whose seat I'm running for.

"What movie are you here to see?," he asked me. "Well, I saw Charlie Wilson's war," I replied, "but now I'm going to see Sweeney Todd." Weprin had no idea what I was doing next, but I held up those Sweeney Todd tickets high in the air, proudly showing him the beginning of a new era.

THANK YOU for an Amazing First Fundraiser!

Everyone will be getting personal thank you's, of course, but after a wildly successful Fancy Shmancy Campaign Kickoff event last night, all I want to shout from the mountain tops to my friends, family, and early supporters is THANK YOU. We had a wonderful time, and because of the generosity of those who attended as well as those who couldn't attend but have already sent in contributions, we raised nearly $10,000! While this is short of my original goal of $20,000, we are still nearly a month away from the January 10th filing date and deadline for this goal, and there are lots of friends who haven't sent in their contributions yet, so, who knows, we might get a lot closer to that 20K by January 10th. In the meantime, thanks again to everyone, with specific thanks / shout outs to:

-my amazing wife Carrie, who everyday is my Hall of Fame Partner in every sense of the word

-my MVP brother Phil and his girlfriend Joanna who came all the way from Washington

-my MVP friend Damon who made an appearance despite having his 2 little girls by his side, and our good friend Stacy, who made an an appearance despite being 9 months pregnant

-my friend Liz Crowley, who is running for the City Council in central Queens and made an appearance despite not feeling well after too many political functions of late.

-my friends from the greatest high school on the planet, Hunter College High School

-Carrie's awesome friends from Emerson College, and best family, who is now truly my family

-Joel, Estelle, Susie & Bert, my reps from the next-youngest generation

-the best marketing team I know, our incredible team from thekbuzz

-my dear friends from The Shops at Atlas Park, Tritonic and 106.7 Lite FM

-my friend Lindsey, who volunteered her services as Karaoke Queen

-Nick from the Queens Chronicle and Dee from the Times Ledger, both excellent photographers

-Karen and all of our other fantastic hosts from Trattoria Lucia (great food and service!)

THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO CAME AND/OR DONATED AND TO THOSE WHO SEND IN CONTRIBUTIONS IN THE NEXT 2 WEEKS. THE BEST IS YET TO COME!